The list is a long one. Herbie Hancock, Afrika Bambaata, Brian Eno, Ginger Baker, John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Sonic Youth, Swans, the Dresden Dolls ... all have worked with the gifted producer/engineer Martin Bisi.

Known best, perhaps, for the work he did with Laswell’s Material project that resulted in the recombination of hip-hop and jazz DNA in Herbie Hancock’s Grammy-winning single “Rockit,” Bisi’s first real recording session was with Eno in the early ’80s. It was Eno who helped Bisi and Laswell construct a recording space in Brooklyn — BC Studio, which was originally dubbed OAO (Operation All Out, from William Burroughs’ novel “Naked Lunch”) that has served as a sort of sound lab for some of the major artists  making provocative avant-garde and indie-rock music over the last few decades.

It was Bisi’s explorations of early hip-hop that landed him a job as producer of early Sonic Youth records Evol and Bad Moon Rising, and after Bisi severed ties with Laswell and Material, he helped Cop Shoot Cop, Foetus, Live Skull and Unsane — to name a few — develop their own revolutionary aesthetic.

In 1988, Bisi got back with Material and the production team found itself in demand, with artists like Iggy Pop, The Ramones and White Zombie vying for their services. Forays into world music included work on a Ginger Baker solo album, Middle Passages.

Coming out from behind the boards in 2008. Bisi released his fourth solo album, Sirens of the Apocalypse (visit www.martinbisi.com to learn more about Bisi and the LP), an exploration of experimental-pop that draws inspiration from a variety of female characters. In part 1 of our interview with Bisi, we explore his new album, his work with Sonic Youth and his interest in graffiti art.

While Sirens of the Apocalypse is sort of all over the map musically, veering from shoegazer to punk-cabaret (“Goth Chick ‘98”) to psychedelia to straight-up indie rock, the overall production harkens back to the frenzied, burned-out beauty of the Sonic Youth recordings you worked on. Is there anything in particular you wanted to draw on from your experiences recording Sonic Youth for this record?
Martin Bisi: Well, I think we kind of have a common sensibility. So, it wasn’t really ... I mean, the sensibility was probably just there in my personality and maybe by complete coincidence, you know. I don’t think that they really sought me out because I’ve had a lot of ... I actually know for a fact that they didn’t seek me out because I had experience with the kind of stuff they wanted to do. I think at that point things were pretty unsophisticated.

They weren’t really thinking, “Oh, this person has a lot of studio experience with this kind of music.” There really wasn’t such a thing as someone with an indie-rock track record in recording — certainly not in multi-track recording. It hadn’t really gotten to that level. I think a lot of that music hadn’t really gotten to that... hadn’t even gone into a multi-track recording studio. So, they came after me really because I’d been doing a lot of hip-hop. And they were pretty fascinated by that whole thing, and then it turned out that I think a lot of our common experiences with... I mean, there’s definitely a lot of noise and a lot of abstract sonic stuff happening in New York and from different fields, you know.

There was like No-Wave. Even punk rock was sort of noisy and chaotic, you know, even straight-up punk rock. And then there was avant-garde... well, avant-garde was kind of an old story at that point, but it was sort of being reinvented, and even though Sonic Youth sort of were disassociating themselves with the avant-garde, they actually did not want to seem too arty, although that seems to be a little ironic at this point.

It does, yeah.
MB: But, they really wanted to draw the distinction. I mean, they were trying to be a bit more punk rock. And I think that’s why they were drawn to hip-hop in general. You know, that was sort of... that had a lot of street cred at the time, and I guess people didn’t want to be too highbrow. At least, I know they didn’t want to be too highbrow, and you can definitely see that in some of the lyrics. And people don’t really talk much about Sonic Youth’s lyrics, but a lot of their stuff is pretty much like... you know, kind of low brow, in some ways.

Yes, celebrity obsessed in some tracks.
MB: Oh, yeah, that too, for sure.

But definitely with a detached irony.
MB: Yeah, that’s in my stuff, too. Like in Sirens, it’s also... because all creativity is sort of reactionary, you know. I get flooded with a lot of highbrow, heady stuff. That’s the stuff that usually gets all the props, anyway. And then part of me is like, well, you know, there’s something to be said for low-brow, you know. I like Tone-Loc, or whatever — “Do The Wild Thing” or something.
There’s another side to creativity. And what’s funny is, ’cause someone had commented about like three months ago, they were just like kind of dismissing Sonic Youth a little bit, saying, “Well, some of those lyrics like, you know, it’s pretty much like let’s do it in the back seat.” There’s literally Sonic Youth lyrics that are like that. You know, and I thought, well, that’s funny. No one ever talks about that. And I was like, yeah, that is in there. And I was thinking, that’s funny. That’s like me also.

Gender issues are addressed heavily on this record. Where do you think relations between the sexes sit at this juncture in history, and why did you want to explore in such detail how women live?
MB: Well, um, it’s funny because in the past I always thought the idea of singing about girlfriends and loves and all these things I thought was sort of trite and maybe not very exciting in terms of songwriting. And I think maybe it was a time when I was young where I really didn’t care about, you know, songs about relationships or whatever, but I guess as it’s worn on, as my life has worn on, I’ve realized that that’s where really so much of the passion is. And as I’ve gotten older, and I grow more skeptical about other things, you know, whether it’s politics or the like, there’s no ... a lot less of my passion is invested in other things.

You grew up in New York City in the ’60s and early ’70s into a musical family that wanted to instill a full appreciation of formal, classical music. But you fought against that, and as a teen, you did a lot of graffiti art. Was that just the usual sort of teenager rebelling against what his parents thought was important, or was there something about the avant-garde that attracted you on a deeper level?
MB: I think a lot of it may be as simple as the usual teenage rebellion, you know. But I do think it might have been a good fit. You know, there might have been, in some other era, maybe it wouldn’t have been. Like I wonder, if I was that age now, whether I would have fit into anything, and whether I could have quote “succeeded” in a sense... because I’m still a bit of a late-’70s person, you know.

When you talk to me about my views on art or politics and stuff, it’s kind of late ’70s, so would I be ... that’s kind of one of those questions that’s impossible to answer. It’s sort of like, if we could go ahead like 40 years and have the same 47-year-old version of me, you know, 40 years from now, would I be the same person with the same viewpoints? I kind of think maybe I’d have the same viewpoints, but maybe things wouldn’t have panned out. Basically, there was a place for me, and there’s a lot about graffiti that kind of resonated.

Also, I think like you could just say it’s art. And you could say, that’s art, and there’s other art forms and other expressions now that sort of... you know, it’s still creativity. I think there are certain underlying sort of philosophies and attitudes that are kind of different. I mean, maybe these things go in cycles, but graffiti sort of resonated because it was very... one thing I did like about graffiti is that it had a very yin-yang kind of attitude. One thing I liked was, to really be considered graffiti, a graffiti artist, and not a "toy" — that was the term, you know, or dilettante or whatever — you had to have skills, and you had to get up, which means that it wasn’t enough to draw on your personal notebook.

You had to actually be out on the street. You had to be in people’s faces. You had to be in public view. And in a way, that’s still kind of how I feel. I’m a little shameless in feeling like that things need to be kicked out there. And I kind of feel like to me art is... it should be heard, it should be seen. You know, sometimes it seems like I’m shamelessly into self-promoting and making sure that things succeed or get out there, but it’s just sort of an ethic. It’s a bit of a yin and yang. Like with graffiti, if you weren’t putting it out on the street, if it wasn’t visible, publicly visible, it wasn’t even considered graffiti.